h and Irish, agree in assigning
to the work of Palladius in Ireland either no existence in fact, or at
most a short period and a small result. The way was thus left clear for
another mission. The man who took up the work made a very different mark
upon it.

I shall not discuss the asserted mission from Rome of St. Patrick, for we
have his own statements about himself. Palladius was called also Patrick,
and to him, not to the greater Patrick, the story of the mission from Rome
applies.

Some time after the death of Celestine and the termination of Palladius's
work in Ireland, Patrick commenced his missionary labours; and when he
died in or about 493, he left Christianity permanently established over a
considerable part of the island. That is the great fact for our present
purpose, and I shall go into no details. It is a very interesting
coincidence that exactly at the period when Christianity was being
obliterated in Britain, it was being planted in large areas of Ireland;
and that, too, by a Briton. For after all has been said that can be said
against the British origin of Patrick, the story remains practically
undisturbed.

It is, I think, of great importance to note and bear in mind the fact that
Ireland was Christianised just at the time when it was cut off from
communication with the civilised world and the Christian Church in Europe.
Britain, become a mere arena of internecine strife, the Picts and Scots
from the north, and the Jutes and Saxons and Angles from the east and
south, obliterating civilisation and Christianity,--Britain, thus
barbarously tortured, was a complete barrier between the infant Church in
Ireland and the wholesome lessons and developments which intercourse with
the Church on the continent would have naturally given. Patrick, if we are
to accept his own statements, was not a man of culture; he was probably
very provincial in his knowledge of Christian practices and rites; a rude
form of Christian worship and order was likely to be the result of his
mission. He was indeed the son of a member of the town council, who was
also a deacon,--it sounds very Scotch: he was the grandson of a priest;
his father had a small farm. But he was a native of a rude part of the
island. And his bringing up was rude. He was carried off captive to
Ireland at the age of sixteen, and kept sheep there for six years, when he
escaped to Britain. After some years he determined to take the lessons of
Christianity to the